MachinEVO is a 5-week workshop in Second Life, for language educators to learn how to produce films for teaching and learning English. It starts on 12th January 2015 and is free of charge. Registrations will be open from 5 -11 January 2015.

A machinima is a film made in a virtual world such as Second Life. The word is derived from combining the words machine and cinema.

A major advantage of creating films in Second Life is that they are far less expensive than real world productions, and a teacher can make them quite easily and very cheaply.

In this EVO session we will learn how to create machinima using screencasting and video editing.. Our videos will be uploaded onto the YouTube or Vimeo hosting sites.

The pedagogical aspects of creating language-learning resources will also be explored.

We will investigate scriptwriting, storyboarding, and making films from live footage.

All participants will work toward the goal of producing a complete machinima by the end of Week 5.

Where does it take place? All practical sessions will be held in Second Life, we have EduNation, Learn It Town and MOSP open and ready for our use. There are many other ways of producing machinima of course, but we exclusively use Second Life. To sign up for a free account and to select an avatar for Second Life, participants need to go to http://www.secondlife.comParticipants need to download the latest Second Life Viewer from that page.

Participants do not have to have experience in Second Life. There is a list of prerequisites on the wiki. We will provide special familiarization sessions for moving, communicating, changing avatars, camera control and so on.

Target audience Anyone involved in the teaching of TEFL/TESOL who is interested in making machinima for use with learners.

During the first two weeks people who already have experience in SL will help train less experienced participants in basic SL skills and film these first attempts - including entertaining, instructive mistakes ( 'Bloopers',‘Howlers’).for a 'Bloopers' reel.

In the remaining weeks everyone will work in smaller groups to enable each individual participant to come away with a machinima of their own whatever their level of competence.

Sponsored by: CALL-IS

Dr. Doris Molero's insight:

It starts on 12th January 2015 and is free of charge. Registrations will be open from 5 -11 January 2015.

A logo is not your brand, nor is it your identity. Logo design, identity design and branding all have different roles, that together, form a perceived image for a business or product. There has been some recent discussion on the web about this topic, about your logo not being your brand. Although this may be true, I haven't seen any clarification of the differences between 'brand', 'identity' and 'logo'. I wish to rectify this. What is brand? – The perceived emotional corporate image as a whole. What is identity? – The visual aspects that form part of the overall brand. What is a logo? – A logo identifies a business in its simplest form via the use of a mark or icon. To explain this in more detail, let’s start at the top – the brand. What is branding? Branding is certainly not a light topic – whole publications & hundreds of books have been written on the topic, however to put it in a nutshell you could describe a ‘brand’ as an organisation, service or product with a

Are you an educator seeing positive results from using Second Life? We’d love to hear from you! Please join us in this Education Forum thread to share your answers to the following questions: What educational organization do you represent? How do you use SL in your educational endeavors? Most imp...

My name is Maria Isabel Quiroz. I’m venezuelan. I’m from a small town called Mene Grande, but I’m living in Maracaibo since 2010. I’m 26 years old and I’m a graphic design student at the University Rafael Belloso Chacin. I’m on the 10th trimester and I’m taking 4 courses. I didn’t take more subjects because I’m working on two big projects related to branding, my favorite special field in Graphic Design.

I love music. I’m always singing a song or playing my guitar. It’s my second passion after Graphic Design. Also, I like dancing, eating (I am totally into Asian food), surfing the net, spending time with my family and friends, travelling and drawing. I like using markers and watercolors when drawing but I really enjoy doing quick doodles about the things that happens around me. I also have many interests related to social sciences such as politics, theology, philosophy and anthropology.

I do not feel like hating something but I can’t stand insects. Every time I have a nightmare, there is a cockroach or a spider going after me. In addition, I don’t like it when people is intolerant or stubborn. I believe It is very important to respect others opinions or values.

I consider myself as a dreamer. There are many things I want to achieve by my sixties. I want to have a beautiful family and be a great mom and wife. I want to have a nice house with a studio to go and work there when I need some time alone or inspiration. Also, I dream about changing my country. I know it sounds crazy but I believe that if we get together and work hard, we can give a better place to our children.

I love languages, especially English because it is spoken all over the world. I studied English at CEVAZ when I was 15 years old. I love reading and watching sitcoms. It is very nice because I can learn new words or phrases everyday. Sometimes, I use social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to interact with people around the world. I have made very good friends. I think my written skills are very good but I have to improve my oral ones.

About Graphic Design

Since I was a kid, I loved to communicate everything through music, dancing, talking and art in general. When I discovered there was such a thing called “Graphic Design”, I just fell in love with it because the symbolic language of graphic design is universal – It has the ability to communicate across different cultures, languages and countries.

I think what I enjoy the most about graphic design, besides being able to create things from zero, I’ts the fact that visual communication has the power to change someone’s behavior for good. Last year, during “Guarimbas” in my country, I made several drawings and I got some feedback from people telling me how my designs influenced then in a positive way. It is very rewarding to do something that can make other people smile or embrace hope.

Create a map of places you've visited (or want to visit or dream about or know people from) and get HTML code that you can embed in your profile on Flickr, Facebook, My Space, your blog or any other web page. Just click your countries and the map will update itself automagically. Then paste the HTML code anywhere you'd like.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.